Remembering
by Halfspell
Summary: Or: Gravy foot day. Post 513. Justin finds a misplaced memory.


Remembering

According to TV, the only real way to remember anything that had been lost to you was in high dramatic style. Lots of flailing, lots of crying and carrying on like you won the lotto or something. Possibly shaking people and babbling on and on about it so that you make no sense. Certainly lots and lots of hysterics. Maybe some running, if you're in the mood.

TV failed to mention the squishy cold gravy and meatloaf soaking into your shoes, though.

Seriously, now, it's been about a year since I decided that I couldn't stand New York City anymore and about eight moths since I managed to convince Brian that Justin-Must-Paint-In-New-York! was about as stupid as a one armed man playing the fiddle. It's been six months since the shiny and expensive floors at home got a little dinged up in the "roller-skating incident" that we never speak of (I swear, I thought he could roller-skate!) and about a week since Painter's Block set it. Painter's block isn't a really big deal or anything, but when it happens, dwelling on it is pretty pointless. I like to go do mindless things when it happens to me, like helping Debbie out at the diner. Helping Debbie's fantastic, since she's Mom #2 to me. Plus. I get lemon bars, cheek pinches and ass smacks when I'm on duty. Total win-win.

"Kiki did not ask Ted out. I refuse to believe it."

And I get the best gossip, too.

"She sure did, Sunshine! Teddy spit his tuna half way across the diner, he was so fuckin' surprised. You okay with them dishes?" She was bringing me another stack of dirty dishes to wash. Turns out I was a god-send, helping out, since the dish washer was on the fritz. I'm the man. I always suspected as much. Anyway.

"Yeah. So what did Ted do? Was Blake there?" I was reaching for a plate that was still mostly full of someone's lunch and I remember making a face. Meatloaf and gravy and something green I hoped was veggies. Gross. Seriously, such a fucking waste. And I guess my hands were really slippery from the dish soap because while Debbi was demonstrating just how stupid Ted looks when he runs in a suit, the plate ended up upside down on my feet. "...Oh." Gross.

"... oh ... Uh ... Ew, Sunshine. Hold on." Debbie bustled away like the force of nature she was to get whatever to clean up and just like that, I remembered. Bang.

It was so stupid and anti-clamatic, too. It was like remembering where you left your keys after an hour of looking for the stupid things, or having one of those "Beef. It's what's for Dinner, dun dun dun" commercials remind you of a hole in the wall restaurant that you forgot existed that did pretty good steak, now that you remember. Just like that, only, with me, itwas cold and congealing gravy snuggling with my toes that made me remember my prom. It didn't even make sense! And when Debbie came back, we were too busy cleaning up and washing my feet and arguing over if I would wear shoes from the scary lost and found box for me to actually tell her that I remembered. So I never got to tell her and I never got to carry on (except for how my feet must smell like a pink plate special and how I didn't want to know how it could be attractive to the right man, god dammit) and I never got to be all Young and the Restless recovering from amnesia. I got to carry on with life and be Justin Meatloaf-toes, instead.

I did think about it sometimes, though. Like a couple of weeks later, I was up to my elbows in the closet and digging around for that white scarf and wondering if it was too far gone to clean or not. Brian was winning some advertising award that night and he was planning on wearing a black tux with a black shirt. The white scarf looked amazing the last time he wore all black, so why not now?

"Justin, what the hell are you doing?" Brian, in all his naked glory, was coming out of the bathroom, perfectly groomed, combed and smelling good enough to make my mouth water. Even after shower blowjobs and bathroom countertop sex, I drool. Halfway through the awards banquet, I'd lose my fight with myself and end up jerking him off under the table or something.

"Justin?" Oh, right. Back to digging.

"Looking for that white scarf I know you kept. It'd look amazing with your suit."

"... The one that's covered in your blood so that it's all gross and disgusting? I didn't keep that."

"You're like an old Jewish grandmother, Brian. You keep everything. Where the fuck is it?" We had too much shit tucked away in these stupid closets!

"But why do you want it? I don't want to wear a bloody scarf. It's so last season." Poor Brian sounded confused. I guess I would be too, dealing with me.

"I want to see if we can wash it or if it's too trashed. This suit's sort of the same as the one you wore to prom and the scarf was amazing then. So I figured, why not?"

There was a lot of silence under my digging, but I was used to it, by now. The silence when Brian was mentally digesting, not the digging. After a while, dressed in his tuxedo pants, he reached past me and poked around for a while and pulled out the scarf to drop it into my hands. It looked like an ancient relic from some saint long dead, way too far gone to rescue. I think I sighed over the mess it was.

"When did you remember?" Brian sat down on the floor next to me, so that our knees were touching, and combed his fingers through rust stained fringe.

"A couple of weeks ago, but it wasn't a big deal."

He did that thing where he looked at me all sly and amused, just knowing that I was leaving something out, and just waited for an explination. So I gave it to him.

"Seriously, it wasn't. It was like I forgot where I put the memory and I suddenly remembered it was behind the couch or something. But more important shit kept going on, so I kept getting distracted. Like, I spilled gravy in my shoes and Gus got his nose pierced and I had to keep you and Linds and Mel all from freaking out, and then J.R. claimed her goat followed her home, only Michael freaked and called you instead of the Humane Society."

"The more important shit?"

"Yeah. You know. Life." Such that it was.

"This happened on gravy-foot day?" God, the sly smile was back.

I'll never live that down. I swear. "Yes, Christ. On gravy-foot day."

Brian tossed the stained scarf back into the closet and hauled the two of us back to our feet. "I think I would have been distracted too. Come on, if we hurry, we can stop by Nordstrom's and pick up a new scarf."

And I was right. The scarf looked amazing on him, just like it did then.

And we danced that night, to cheesy awards banquet music after Brian won his award and smirked like a beautiful bastard instead of bothering with an acceptance speech.

To be fair, though, I think we would have danced regardless of memories.


End file.
